Big Ideas

Wednesday 9/27/2017 – OPENING: 30 minutes

It’s Hump-Day folks, and that means it’s time for ‘What’s The Big Idea?’. What? You didn’t know that?

Of course not, it’s our first time playing, but as with ’20 Questions’ and ‘Cite that Source’, it will be a weekly warm up for us so we get loads of practice with the skills needed to identify Big Ideas, and it’s these very Big Ideas that frame meaningful learning.

When we’re done, you’ll work with your group to develop a list of at least 5 Big Ideas that you think this article touches upon. Keep in mind, Big Ideas aren’t necessarily the topic of the article, but maybe the article mentions them in passing, or touches on them, or maybe it just makes you THINK of something that is related.

A quick example. One of the big ideas that I see in this article is Population Growth. The article isn’t about population growth, but it does mention it, and that issue connects to the topic of this article AND many other issues. Population growth is relevant to food production, to economics, to politics, to migration, to war, to climate change, etc…

So your job is to come up with at least 5 Big Ideas in your group that connect to this article.

LESSON – 25 minutes

If we get past the warm up, we’ll look at the Engage phase of CBL – the phase that includes, you guessed it, the Big Idea. However, this is an important topic, so the warm up today may, in fact, take the entire class period.

If that’s the case, we’ll continue with it tomorrow.

Takeaways

Big Ideas drive learning.

Big Ideas connect topics and ideas.

Sometimes the Big Idea isn’t obvious.

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Quote of the Week

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
John Muir

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About…

I’m in my 4th year as a lead learner at Vista High School. My credential is in Social Studies, but as a founding member of the Personalized Learning Academy, and now a member of the early adopters team for the 1st year of XQ Super School implementation, the traditional ideas around high school social studies don’t really apply….read more

Goals…

Though we’re still knee-deep in the ‘action research’ phase, the goals are clear…

Equip learners with a framework for learning that can be transferred to all aspects of school life, and beyond.

Involve students in the design of their learning experiences to increase relevancy and agency.